I stand for love…

Today, I awoke to an invite to this flickr group. The timing was so coincidental because just the other day I was thinking of doing a blog post about love, and how no matter what the gender breakdown of partners may be, love is wonderful, beautiful and amazing. It was also funny timing because I had to shoot an ad for a vendor texture today for a pose Rad made over the weekend. I am going to share a pic I took while shooting that here.

This pose is called Together. It’s our second romantic pose for two men… and I think it’s very sweet and tender. And yes, I am one of the “men” in that pic. I’m the brunette. My friend Sephie is the blond, so it’s two RL women who posed as men for this ad, but I think we’re fairly cute… especially in our A:S:S boxers and mesh tanks!

This is the business side of my story. Embody is my “baby,” and it’s very important to me that we sell something that allows couples of all gender combos to show their love. This is where we get to the personal side of the story.

I grew up very religious. As many know, I’m now an atheist, but as a child I was as devout as it gets. However, I was also acutely aware, from a very young age, that I was somehow different from other kids. Specifically, from other girls. I had lots of crushes on boys, just like any little girl… but I also had crushes on girls. I didn’t really understand that at the time. I explained away my feelings, trying to rationalize them to myself because my religious beliefs taught me my feelings were somehow dirty and wrong. Of course, this applied to my feelings for boys, too, eventually… but not to the same extent.

My first kiss was technically with a girl. I was only 9, and she was only 8. We were best friends and experimenting, which is not uncommon even among children who later grow up to be “straight” adults. But 10 years later, we’d kiss again… and this time it wasn’t the innocent exploration of childhood. It was a burning curiosity. But she and I were too close, almost like sisters in a way, and I felt strange kissing her because of that. What I did take away from the experience was the reality, finally, that I was bisexual. It should’ve been obvious, but I’m 36 now. I grew up in a time when “gay” was only something we were just starting to see on TV, and bisexual wasn’t mentioned at all. Ironically enough, my first childhood boyfriend – and the first boy I kissed – would later “come out” as gay when we were young adults.

By the time I embraced my sexuality, I was an adult and had long since abandoned the religious beliefs of my childhood. This made it easier to have these feelings, but I still had no idea what to do with them, really. I had a few flirtations with women, but nothing that ever amounted to much of anything. I foolishly convinced myself that I couldn’t love a woman. I think, in retrospect, I did that because I realized it would be easier that way. I thought it was a purely physical attraction that could never become anything “real.”

I met the man who would become my husband just before my 23rd birthday. He’s the love of my life… I know what real love is because of him and all he’s given me. Not only is he my RL husband, he’s my SL husband. We run a business together in SL, and we spend almost all of our time in both worlds together. I am incredibly fortunate that the laws don’t forbid my marriage. I am incredibly lucky that society accepts it as “normal” or “acceptable.” While I can’t imagine loving anyone else, it was never impossible that the love of my life may have been a woman. If that had been the case, I’d have had to fight for our love in ways that heterosexual couples can’t possibly imagine.

And so… I stand for love. Love is beautiful and pure, regardless of the genders of those in the relationship. Life is far, far too short and precious to deny anyone the right to love. If it doesn’t hurt anyone else – and gay couples do NOT hurt anyone, despite what the religious right would have us believe – then what right does anyone else have to deny it.

To anyone reading this who is anti-gay or anti-bisexual… I want you to look at your partner tomorrow when you wake up. I want you to imagine a world in which you were told you could not love that person. That it wasn’t “right” or “natural.” I want you to imagine a world in which you weren’t free to make the most personal of choices… the person with whom you share your love and life.